Terri's Travels: Sunday in Arezzo and the unintentional long walk

Exploring a new city, its a good idea to walk around.. but with no sense of direction, its easy to get lost.. so it became the Sunday of my unintentional long walk.

According to Google Pedometer I walked about 4.5 miles.. I don't doubt it because I walked from 10 to 12, and then 12:45 to about 2:15. strongly possible. Arezzo is very hilly, so you can also see the elevation chart to show how I walked up and down steep hills.. a good workout.

First I walked to the grocery store, but never made it. they were having a street fair around a 10K that they were having, and they had vendors and such selling things. I wanted to buy a cake for tomorrow's birthday, and I found two ladies selling homemade cakes for 10 Euro so I got 2.. I also bought a thing of cookies.. (before I found the second cake)..

after I bought these items, I decided to walk back home so I would not need to carry them around.

When I started out again, I thought I would go check out the park that everyone says is so nice.. its up a very steep hill and sits near the cathedral (Duomo)

as in all things Tuscan, the cathedral is quite ornate, with stories depicted in every nook and cranny. (I will link to more pictures later) .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arezzo_Cathedral

These are the views from the park next to the Duomo.. I think as I get stressed, I need to come up here and look at the tuscan sun some more. The park is called prato park which means "the meadow".

even just the clouds are beautiful.

Arezzo sits on a hill and was a fortified town with a wall, and here at the park next to the duomo is the first time that I saw that wall up close and personal.

This is the statue in the park.

after I walked around the park, I ran into the RA from OUA who was about to go to church at noon. I figured, why not.. I lit a candle for a special intention and sat through the mass in Italian.. everything but the words were easy to follow.

The tourists were being total a-holes during an active mass.. ie.. walking up the center aisle to take pictures and talking and wandering around during mass!!!!!!! So I did not take any pictures at all.. but I did a quick search on flickr and you can see its was really ornate inside..(nothing yet in Tuscany is not).. https://www.flickr.com/search/?q=arezzo+cathedral

it was very cool.

After mass, i ventured down the hill a little toward the tourist center. The nice thing is that this part of town has a lot of historical landmark signs.

Something that our tour guide in Florence taught us to look for on old buildings, horse ties.

I continued to walk down the hill, where I got lost.. I got to this roundabout that has the symbol of the town, the chimera on in it. I am learned from our Florence Guide to look at things all the way around.. and this proved interesting on the Chimera too.

This is where the chimera sits - as you leave the fortification of the town.

after I left the fortified part of town.. I got a little lost. and realized I needed to be back inside the city walls.. so I went around until i figured that out looking for the train station.. Here is one section you can get really close to, from both "inside: and outside.

I was thinking .. wow this has sustained a long time.. I love how the grass grows in it but it still stands.